My efforts at frugal living

[Kaleva]

27. Good question about the amount of water I use.

Did some calculations after reading your post. A 5 minute shower every day accounts for half of it. Even with a low flow 2.5 gpm shower head, I use about 12 gallons every day taking a shower. Brushing my teeth twice a day, washing my hands and shaving uses about a gallon and a half and that's not leaving the water running. Doing laundry about every 5 days, washing dishes every other day, making coffee twice a day and other minor uses accounts for the remainder of the usage.

I could cut down on the water taking a shower by turning off the water after wetting down and then back on again to rinse off and maybe reduce the gallons used a month by about 150 or so a month which would save me me roughly $16 over 5-6 months time. It costs me about $43 a month just to have a water line to the house. I think 700-750 gallons a month is about as low as I can go considering I'll need to water the garden next year which I plan on using the wash water from washing clothes for.

Yes, I'm pretty pleased with myself about the trellis idea. After I had removed the fabric and wood, I was wondering what the heck I could so with them. They are not something I could leave on the side of the street on garbage day for regular pickup and it would be a tough job to cut them into small enough pieces to fit in the old metal filing cabinet where I'm putting scrap metal. As i was holding onto one and thinking about it, I looked down and thought one could plant vine crops down there so I measured them and measured the garage wall which forms the boundary for part of my future garden and they'd fit perfectly laid on their side and end to end.

I'm finding uses for all kinds of stuff I'm finding here left by previous occupants over the years. Such as empty plastic Frisky cat food containers. The ones with a handle and large screw on cap. I first put them in the garbage and then thought that I didn't have a watering can so I dug them back out, drilled small holes in the caps of two of the from the inside out, filled them with water, screwed the caps back on and tried them out as watering cans and they work as such.

It's fun looking at something and trying to figure out what I could use it for. The wood I salvaged from the box spring mattresses is 2" x 1/2" and I'm going to use them as frames for storm windows for the basement windows. I have a roll of heavy gauge opaque plastic, the kind one would lay down on the ground in a crawl space, and that will be the windows. Not the best but it will have to do until I have the money to replace the basement windows.

It'll be nice to be almost debt free (assuming I purchase a moped next year and make payments on it) by late summer next year and then have the money to make needed improvements on this house. Especially on insulation. I can live at temps in the 50's during the next two winters in order to save money to pay off debts in order to free up cash for making the improvements but it does kind of suck and I'd like to have it about 68 but without the furnace running pretty much steady in order to maintain that temp even in relatively mild temperatures and not have this house be an oven during the hot summer months.